Riad Nezha Merzouga

I wake up from an hour and half nap, after roughly two days of no sleeping, anxious and discombobulated. It's 5:00 am and there's a thunderstorm downpour outside. I need to make it over to Beth's apartment to swap gear (give her back the backpack she lent me for my trip to China and get my laptop bag back and a bag with all of my bank account info in Korea.) Hailed a taxi after trudging through the rain with three huge suitcases. All of my things are ...

I apologise for the lack of actual information on this page. It has been a fairly hectic few days. Needless to day, I have already been in contact with most of you by now and updated you on how the new job was going.<br><br>I, along with another colleague, rented a rather batter, manual gear, Hyundai Accent and took it for a spin for about 24 hours around Riyadh and also out to Ad-Diriyiah. Al-Diriyah is a town in Saudi Arabia located on the ...

... made their way to &#8216;Passport Control&#8217;. Once at passport control, there were clearly signposted several lanes. There were queues for GCC citizens, first time visitors and second time visitors. Once a foreigner has received his residency permit then he can use the &#8216;Second Time Visitor&#8217; lane and this speeds up things quite a bit. But of course, I was joining the longer queue. When, after 45 minutes, I was called forward my passport and visa details were ...

... their own cars, men that is as women aren't permitted to drive. But Glenn and a couple of his work colleagues like having a driver they know and trust to taxi them around. Makes life easier...<br><br>On the drive to the compound i had a chance to look at the scenery....buildings are large, I was surprised at how much english language is around, lots of new buildings going up. Kingdom Tower ...

When you are entering Riyadh from the east, you pass a lot of agricultural spots -- date farms, dairy farms, fields with modern irrigation equipment. Leaving the city heading west it's as if you have come to the edge of a vast cliff and are now headed down into an enormous valley. Our ears ...

... stool. It was cramped but served the purpose. I took a picture. I have a theme going - the bathrooms of Morocco. Should make quite a slide show! Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep because a pack of dogs somewhere nearby barked all night long (and I mean all night). I forgot my earplugs. Got about 3 hours of sleep tops. Everyone else in my room slept through it. I wish I could do that!<br><br>We were up at 7am Saturday ...

... just before sunset at the foot of one of the tallest dunes. Making the effort to scale a 1,600-foot sand dune is akin to trying to climb a mountain made of pillows; however, even with the handicap of often taking one step up and two steps back, the girls finally reached the crest of the dune to see the dunes stretching out toward Algeria, with the setting sun sinking past the horizon to the west ...

... adequately at the same time so I reverted to a brisk walking pace but the damn cubicle still seemed miles away. Yet another surge down below and I knew without doubt I would never make it. DIG GIRL DIG! YOU HAVE TO GO NOW! RIGHT HERE! IN THE OPEN! My forehead and back were covered in beads of perspiration, despite the freezing night air, as I dug the fastest hole ever dug in the history of desert toilet hole digging. The urge to squat and push was all consuming ...

... edge of the Sahara dunes http://www.hoteltomboctou.com/hotel_e.h tm. It was beautiful, comfortable and it had a pool so we could beat the 115 degree weather. The meals here were fantastic and the service so nice. We awoke at 4:00 the next morning and took a camel ride into the Sahara to watch the sunrise on top of a one of the many huge sand dunes. It was so nice and peaceful - a definite highlight to the trip.

... ourselves. It seemed cruel, but the thought being in the desert without camels was a much more unpleasant thought. As the sun went down so did the temperature. We had no way of knowing the actual temperature but it took five woolen blankets to keep us warm. It wasn't until about an hour after Ellen and Mustafa started sawing logs that my little pea-brain went on automatic pilot. My eyes opened wide as I stared at the complete darkness, wind whistling through the tent ...